4th-Axis work Holder

I realize I might be the only member who owns a Router Boss but I was given permission to talk about a new accessory I've been beta testing so I thought I'd share. The developer of the Router Boss has come up with what he calls a 4th axis work holder. In the image it is the assembly on the right end with the crank and the red and green bits (head stock). At the left end is a tail stock (the pointy part) both of which ride on a horizontally mounted rail. Both the head stock and tail stock can be positioned anywhere along the rail and the rail can be set so one end is higher than the other. The head stock is an indexing head but the indexing can be unlocked.

With the 4th-axis work holder, you can turn square stock round or tapered. It makes it easy to cut flutes or even mortises on things like table legs. I can think of quite a number of applications for this. Since the router and work are both attached, it's quite safe and there's excellent dust collection on the Router Boss. The unit comes with a face plate in addition to the green thing which is a receiver for square pieces up to about 2-1/4" square. There's a spur drive available as an option.

Sorry. No photos of it yet. I haven't had time to get my camera out to the shop. I don't know the price of the accessory yet but from what I've been told, it should be available in August.

Very cool, that would add a whole other level of capability to it.

Indeed it does. You could even do something like dovetail sockets for legs on the bottom of a round column on a small Shaker table.

Gotta love those extrusions.

Very neat idea. Reminiscent of the old Sears router/lathe thingy, but with a lot more capability when you consider what you can do with the Router Boss itself.

Vaughn, I suggested a gear rack mounted along the bottom of the main box and some sort of gearing on the headstock so that the work could get turned while moving laterally. That would give the opportunity to do some cool stuff.

Dave Richards said:

Vaughn, I suggested a gear rack mounted along the bottom of the main box and some sort of gearing on the headstock so that the work could get turned while moving laterally. That would give the opportunity to do some cool stuff.

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Might be able to come up with some stepper motor mounts for the two hand cranks and run them in sync to create some pretty accurate designs. Maybe a Z axis attachment that could be put in place of the router motor to control the height. Ok, that might be going to far.